Technological advancements are increasing at pace, and there is no reason to get left behind. With a smartphone in your pocket or a tablet in your backpack, you are just a couple of swipes away from being able to turn your hand to pretty much anything.
Nowhere is this more evident than in design, where scraps of paper can now be beautifully-curated illustrations in minutes. Want to know if a piece of furniture will fit in your room, how a paint shade will look on your walls, or the exact way the natural sunlight will be reflected? There’s an app for that.
Turning on the heating or air conditioning when you are still 10 miles away from your phone? No problem. At the supermarket and can’t remember if you have any milk left? Have a virtual look inside your fridge and find out.
There are so many ways that technology is making lives easier for us, and our homes are a good place to start.
Digital mood boarding for design inspiration
Whether you are completely designing from scratch and need to look at fixtures, fittings and architectural room design or just want to refresh your interiors, a digital mood board gives you a space to do just that, collating pictorial ideas and inspiration from a huge variety of sources, which you can then share with your architect, builder, spouse or anyone else with a vested interest in the project.
Websites such as Style Sourcebook, Pinterest and Design it Yourself provide the perfect platform to gather together an online scrapbook of ideas, colours and themes for your new home. Best of all, they are completely free.
Visualise in virtual reality
When it comes to designing the building itself, or making structural renovations, 3D rendering and virtual reality come into their own. How good is it to be able to see exactly how a room will look, before actually physically changing anything about it?
Virtual reality headsets enable the wearer to view their home digitally, fully immersing themselves in interactive experiences that show off its potential. As an architect, imagine not having to build another display home and having all your home designs in VR.
Buyers from anywhere in the world could walk through your homes 24/7 and customise all the finishes to their specifications. Not only is this quicker and easier, but it is also much more sustainable and cuts down on waste from discarded ideas.
3D rendering can be used to provide a highly realistic impression of many aspects of home design, including front elevation, floor plans, room interiors throughout the property, or even full-on streetscapes. Combined with a 360-degree panoramic tour of a property which can be viewed online or even immersively using a VR headset, 3D rendering helps to give a real feel to any proposed architectural or interior designs, making it much easier to visualise.
Make choices with augmented reality
If you want to seamlessly see products in real-life environments before purchasing them, augmented reality is for you. Augmented reality technology lets you insert digital items into reality, positioning them in the real background in such a way that it looks real.
Shoppers can use the app from their smartphones to select a product they like – for example, a sofa – and then position the cursor to place it where they want it, in a photo of their lounge room. They will then be able to visualise what the final item will look like, on their screen. The user can choose variations, colours and sizes for complete customisation without the need to travel to a physical showroom.
There are even augmented reality apps which work as a tape measure, so you can ensure that not only does it look good in the space, but it will actually fit there too.
Smart integrations for smart living
Technology is now intrinsically linked to our day-to-day lives, and the advent of smart technology within the home over the past few years has made everything we do more efficient.
There is a multitude of ways to integrate smart technology, with devices to control audio-visual equipment, lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, and home security . In the near future, experts predict that smart homes will go much further than just standalone devices. Smart interiors will be built into the structure of our homes.
Italian design company Tipic is pioneering smart kitchen integrations with their revolutionary Tulèr kitchen worktop. Built from a slab of quartz composite, the smart work surface includes a sink that appears as you wave your hand over a sensor. Wave again and the sink rises to create the illusion of a perfectly flush, uninterrupted work surface once more. Take a look at Tipic’s smart worktop in action here:
However, you may not want to go quite as overboard as that, and planning what you want to implement around how you use each room is a good way to start. Most smart technology relies on – often hidden – cabling and if you are considering including multiple elements of technology – smart lighting, blind control and security, for instance – or a whole-house solution, you ideally need a smart home installer. They will design and install technology according to your needs. They will also unify control, providing a single source of control, removing the need to open multiple apps or reach for different remotes.
Multi-tasking voice-activated systems
The Smart Audio Report, compiled by Edison Research and Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), was aimed at understanding use cases for smart speakers across the growing numbers of consumers who own them. Overall, 26 per cent of Australians, or 5.6 million, reportedly now own a voice-activated speaker, up from 17 per cent reported in 2020. Of these, 67 per cent report they use the speaker daily, and 88 per cent use it on a weekly basis.
Google Home devices have seen the biggest take-up in Australia, thanks to its greater local knowledge for items such as weather reports and traffic information, over the likes of Amazon and Apple.
Voice-activated technology works by recognising your voice and translating it into code that the device understands and can then react to. It is a great way to be able to do several things at once, while cooking, cleaning, or driving, or just being lazy and not wanting to move to turn off a light or listen to music. It has also seen tremendous advances among the disabled population who can now use voice-activated systems to give them far more independence than they ever had before.
Incorporating voice-activated devices into your home is time-saving, practical and future-proof.
Final thoughts
Technology is here to stay and is already making our lives easier to manage. Using it to design your home is an incredibly cost-effective method of testing out a few different options before settling on the one which suits you best.
No more traipsing home with sample paint pots and trying to decide which shade of blue you want in your bedroom and then trudging all the way back again to buy tins of your desired colour.
Now, you can overlay the colours directly onto an image of the room, digitally move your furniture around and order the paint via a voice-activated speaker. You will still need to roll the paint onto the walls yourself though. Sorry.
Keep yourself updated with useful tips like these by getting registered on Soho. Not only are we finding you your dream home, but we’re also helping you save for it and decorate it! So don’t forget to swipe on your property matches so we can get you there faster.
*This article was written by property management specialist, Lucy Cromwell.
